Glynka - It all started when I pointed out the serious lack of women in the Warner Bros. cartoon cast. I was at lunch with a mixed group of men and women. The women clammed up. The men formed an offensive line and prepared to tackle me with every 400 pound argument they had. It was a simple comment really. All I said was that, as far as I could see, there are only two female Warner Brothers characters--the clearly addlepated Granny and the hotly pursued cat who, in the end, really does mean "yes" when she says "no." That was enough. The men came at me with both guns, but I was armed with Kramerae's theory and the strength of my convictions. They started out by telling me that I was making a big deal out of nothing and called me "sweetie." I said that cartoons raise most American children--they help define and reflect our value system. They said there are plenty of good female role models for kids and called me "hon." I countered with a reference to grotesquely proportioned Barbie dolls . . . . It went on this way for approximately half an hour. I lost. And here's where muted group theory comes in. None of the other women at the table joined into the conversation, and that's understandable since by the end of it I was tagged as a "femi-Nazi" by everyone within hearing distance. The women seemed to understand that the things they could say in private would be discounted in the public forum of the lunchroom debate table—so they probably knew they'd get bulldozed. Also, a consequence of my getting heated in battle is that the pitch of my voice raises; since this made me sound less and less like a man, my arguments were completely plowed under by the men who thought I was getting myself upset and just being "silly." On top of that, the men devalued me as an arguer by calling me diminutive names. Basically, although my arguments were well thought out and valid, I lost the battle because the men couldn't hear them—with every intelligent defense of women's issues I was losing credibility with the men. In the bowling ball game of life, I was knocking down all the pins, but the men were keeping score. So I lost.